I have a friend who is a songwriter who has absolutely zero internet presence.
I’m not saying that he doesn’t have presence…he has more presence than most people I know. He’s a very charismatic guy.
It’s just that he hasn’t worked at putting his name out in the “internet world”.
He hasn’t developed the skill of glib self promotion.
He doesn’t have a Facebook account.
He keeps it real.
When you Google his name to see what he’s up to, the only things you come up with are mentions of when he’s been involved with someone who is kind of “internet savvy”.
I woke up this morning and wondered if maybe he’s on to something that I didn’t really understand. Maybe it’s a good thing to not be so connected?
I know that I’d give up any information a lot of the time if I thought I’d get something free. If I thought I’d get a free e-book out of the deal I’d be more than willing to tell anybody just about anything.
Especially if it was a free e-book with a title like “How to Protect Your Internet Privacy”. I could use something like that.
I come across as a cranky Luddite (with a self-hosted blog….what a contradiction) when I complain about how over connected we are. I know that.
It’s something that maybe has to be an either/or situation…you’re connected and involved with the internet…or you’re not. Maybe there isn’t any middle ground.
Maybe it’s only a huge middle ground that keeps getting bigger.
It’s something we feed until it’s so big that it swallows us whole.
The internet is like a hammer.
A hammer is a great tool. It’s good to have a hammer if you need to whack a nail…pound it down.
But I wouldn’t want to wear a necklace made of hammers. It would be awkward.
I don’t want to be blue toothed to death. I don’t want to constantly be checking Facebook on my smart phone to see if anyone in the Cloud has managed to “outclever” us all. I don’t even know if I want a smart phone.
I don’t want to be turned into an android…or chipped…or monitored…or regulated.
I don’t want the men in the black helicopters to swoop down and imprison me in a secret underground government facility.
Especially if my only crime is mentioning a secret underground government facility in my blog.
That would really stink.
So my friend has no internet presence. That a good thing sometimes. He knows who he is. He knows what he’s done. He doesn’t need the internet for some kind of weird boost.
Art can stand on its own without any thought for Search Engine Optimization.
Here’s a great Guy Clark song…I think that he has a good handle on the situation.
Like most things, I don’t really know what the answer is.
Maybe it’s good to back away from it all.
Facebook serves its purpose. It can be fun to reconnect with friends.
But it’s not life.
It’s just another hammer.